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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Best Firewall Software of 2008: Online Armor

Following a long year and a half study, Scot Finnie named Online Armor 2.1 as the Best Firewall Software of 2008. Unfortunately Windows Vista users will have to wait a while longer. As far as I can tell, Tall Emu has not yet released a Windows Vista compatible version of the firewall.

12 comments:

Fortunately for users of Vista, Comodo 3.0 IS available (and free!), and is every bit as good at protecting the computer, as Online Armour. As Scott notes, you have to get used to the interface and it's not for real computer novices. But, I'm guessing anyone who reads this blog can handle it.

"Better" is often in the eyes of the beholder or, in this case, the surfing habits of the person sitting at the keyboard. According to the Leak Tests at Matousec, the anti-leak protection provided by Kerio is poor where Online Armor is Excellent/100%.

As good as Online Armor is, it will require "training". I would suggest fully investigating it and perhaps visiting their support forums if you are considering a change. Remember, however, that you do have WinPatrol which goes a very long way in adding protection to your computer.

Personally, I used Kerio on my previous computer (Windows XP) and was very pleased with it.

Dusty, if your computer has not been infected with viruses/trojans, etc., then what you are doing is just fine. Should you have problems, you can always visit us at LandzDown Forum and we'll take a look at your setup and provide advice for your consideration.

Online Armor may be the best for paid customers but for free I don't think it is.

Due to this one point- To update Online Armor firewall free users are not allowed any updates in a normal way. Instead, for every patch as well as new version free users must uninstall, download, install, and reset the firewall.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if Online Armor wasn't putting out so many updates to their firewall or more importantly, made it more obvious that one has to do the clean install to update. Instead the user knows there is an update yet can not find a way to update the firewall through the program.

In a recent version which may or may not still be there, the right click menu from the taskbar icon has an update option but does nothing. When you click it a small box pops up saying that it's updating but quickly closes and not everyone may be able to tell nothing happened because again Online Armor does not make clear to people they have to uninstall, do a fresh download, install, and reset. It is not until people go searching about on forums or asking around that they might find out.

Now of course this issue has nothing to do with the firewalls performance, programming etc which is what Scot was surely looking at. However, if moderately able computer users are confused by this unique free program tactic and are unable to keep up with needed updates then it quickly becomes a valid issue performance wise for many people.

I myself went back to Comodo because of it. It was only this issue that made me dislike and not recommend Online Armor's free firewall.

It is apparent that Scot's analysis is not being read. The "Best Firewall" selection is not for the free version of either Online Armor or Comodo. Scot very specifically indicated the results are based on the paid/licensed software:

"This review is specific to the paid version of Online Armor, which costs about $40. I’ve extensively tested both the free and the paid versions, and both work well. But it’s the paid version that I prefer and recommend"